“He was popular. Soccer star and all that. Everyone was sure he was going pro.”
“And then he got Shelly knocked up and he decided to put a ring on it,” Amberlynn added. She’d been a year behind him and Shelly, so had no doubt had a front row seat to the scandal.
“Which was the noble thing to do,” I pointed out, even though I was not one of Shelly’s greatest admirers, based on her performance at the house.
“The noble thing is to not knock up your high school girlfriend,” Wiley suggested. He elbowed Amber at this comment and I had a very unwanted vision of the two of them as teenagers. I knew they’d probably been having sex, but having confirmation of it was more than I needed at Sunday dinner.
“I know none of my girls were being so irresponsible at that early age,” Mom said. “But it’s just like a Tucker to tempt some poor girl into making terrible decisions.” She offered this last bit looking right at me, and I knew she meant the house. If Mom knew about the other horrible decisions I’d been tempted to make when I’d seen Michael without his shirt on!
“Michael didn’t tempt me into this thing with the house. Mrs. Easter gave it to us.”
“So ridiculous,” Mom said.
“Did you know she was both a Tucker and a Tanner?” I asked. “Her parents fell in love when they were teens, and got married when Robert Tucker came home from World War I.” Mom actually looked impressed when I shared this information. She loved old family stories, and maybe learning that the house was actually related directly to our family line would convince her the Tuckers weren’t all evil.
“That’s romantic,” Paige said.
“It was,” I said, nodding. “Their parents didn’t approve of the relationship.”
“Very Romeo and Juliet,” Cormac said.
“I think it was,” I said. “Her letter said they believed their relationship was fated in the stars.”
“Lord,” Wiley said, leaning back in his chair.
“What?” Amberlynn asked him. “I think that’s romantic.”
“That’s a load of hooey,” Wiley said. “Love is a choice. Not something that’s fated.”
“Hmmm,” Mom said, standing. “Clear the plates, girls. I need you to taste some things for dessert.” I was glad for the change of subject.
Mom often tried out new cafe ideas on us. “Ooh, what is it this time?” Cormac asked. He said Mom’s cherry-themed treats were responsible for him falling in love with Paige.
“Halloween is around the corner,” Mom said. “I’ve got some ghost poofs and goblin toes for you to try.”
“Yum,” Wiley said sarcastically, and Mom shot him a look. She was, historically, not the biggest fan of my sister’s boyfriend, who embraced sarcasm like religion.
That night, after everyone had left and I was once again lying in my childhood bedroom, I picked up the phone stared at it. I wanted to talk to Michael, but couldn’t explain to myself why. I missed him, which I knew made no real sense. I put the phone down and sighed, but the lonely emptiness of my room made me pick it up again. I sighed and texted Michael.
Addie: Did you stop by the house at all? See how the floors are coming? I’m not sure I’ll survive a week at Mom’s.
There was no immediate reply, and I put the phone down on the nightstand, trying to ignore the swirl of disappointment in my stomach. Michael was not obligated to text with me at night. We weren’t boyfriend and girlfriend. Hell, we weren’t anything. Why did recognition of that fact make me feel so sad?
19
Virge in Lavender
Michael
I waited a long time to respond to Addie’s text. Longer than I wanted to, and that was the whole problem. Seeing her note—knowing she was thinking of me at night, feeling like a kid with a crush—all of it was wrong. Shelly was threatening to take the one thing that made my life make sense, and if I let myself think about any of what I wanted with Addie, I was putting everything at risk. I couldn’t afford to get distracted. I wouldn’t get myself into a situation where I was putting my son any place other than first in my list of priorities. If I let myself become infatuated, if I nursed this misplaced desire I was starting to realize I had for Addie, I might end up failing at the only thing I was managing to do right in my life.
Addie was like a bright spot that had appeared in an otherwise dark sky. I’d wandered through the murk for years, doing what was expected and doing everything in my power to be a good father to my son, because that was all that mattered. But now there was Addie, and some whisper in the back of my mind saying that maybe she mattered to me too, even if she wasn’t supposed to. Telling me that maybe I wanted her too, even if I couldn’t have her.
The time we’d spent together so far had been special to me, even though most of it had been focused on cleaning up an old house. There was something about her, something that made me want to be near her, learn more of what went on in her head. And it was the most interesting thing I’d encountered in a long time. I didn’t want to give her up.
I picked up my phone.
Michael: Haven’t been by today but I’ll check progress tomorrow. You doing okay?
Addie: Mom is a lot.
Michael: I can imagine. And I mean that in the nicest way possible.
Addie: I’ll survive. But when choosing between ghostly shrieking and Mom’s questions and judgment, I’m pretty sure ghosts win.
Michael: That’s saying something.
Addie: It would probably be hard for anyone to live at home again at 35. Plus, she liked Luke and keeps suggesting I try to work things out with him.
I paused. I hadn’t considered that Addie might be thinking of going back to her ex. An unwanted churn of jealousy erupted in my gut.
Michael: Are you considering it?
Addie: Definitely not. Turns out I have a shred of self-respect left.
The jealousy fizzled out.
Michael: Good.
Addie: ?
Crap. I realized I had no say at all in what she did, and offering an opinion about her ex was probably the wrong way to go.
Michael: I just mean that I think you deserve better.
Addie: That’s nice.
Did she not believe me?
Michael: There’s something about you. You’re special. Don’t take anything less than you deserve.
I cringed after hitting send, wondering if I’d said way too much. There was a significant pause, and my stomach twisted. Definitely too much.
Then, after a full five minutes:
Addie: Thank you. That means a lot to me. I have similar advice for you, you know.
I wasn’t sure what to make of that, but decided I’d already put myself out there enough for one night.
Michael: I’ll talk to you tomorrow.
Addie: Good night.
I did talk to the contractors the following day, and learned that we could be in the house again after the floors had a full four days to dry and set. I texted Addie to let her know we could move back in on Friday.
I spent the week at the store, sneaking back to my workshop when I could. I was building a few things for the house, things I probably shouldn’t have bothered with. But Addie was on my mind, and while maybe I needed to avoid thinking of her in the attractive-woman-I-had-interest-in kind of way, I could think of her in the friend-I-wanted-to-do-something-nice-for kind of way. No harm in that, right?
On Thursday, I arrived at work to find Emmet and Virgil behind the counter, and the whole place scented like a bath and body shop and not a farm supply store. This stunk, and not just of lavender. My cousins were up to something.
“What’s going on?” I asked them.
They exchanged a guilty look, and then faced me with matching blank expressions. “Whatddya mean, ‘cuz?” Virgil said.
My suspicions rose even higher. “The smell in here? Did you light candles or something?”
“There’s no smell.”
“Virge, you can deny a lot of things, but there is definitely a smell. I
s it lilac?”
“You can identify the scent of lilacs?” he asked me skeptically.
“I don’t know, actually. Probably not. It’s like gardenia or something. Floral. Ovewhelmingish.”
The brothers exchanged a look. “I told you we didn’t get it off,” Virgil said, punching his brother in the chest.
“What is it?” I asked, incredibly curious now, despite my better judgement.
“Something happened,” Emmett said, dropping his eyes to the floor.
“We got hit,” Virgil said.
“Hit?” They’d been pranked. “By what? A bath bomb?”
They exchanged a glance and then Virgil’s ruddy face darkened. “Tanners.”
Here we went again. “Tanners made you smell like a garden party full of old ladies?”
They nodded. “It’s in our apartment,” Virgil said. “The smell is literally everywhere. Like a potpourri bomb exploded in there or something. We’ve been doing laundry all night, and we both took a bunch of showers with super manly soap, but nothing helps.”
That was a mental image I didn’t need. “Did you try tomato juice? Supposed to help with skunk smell.”
“This isn’t skunk, Mike. It’s worse,” Virgil said, looking embarrassed about his womanly scent.
“Lavender,” said a woman approaching the counter with a large bag of dog food in her arms. “It’s nice,” she said, clearly believing we had decided the store needed to upgrade its scent. I doubted the bulk of my customers—who wore work jeans and boots and chewed tobacco would feel similarly.
“Thanks,” I said, ringing her up. “Come again.”
She smiled and headed out, and I turned back to my cousins. “You guys reek.”
“The Tanners will pay for this,” Virgil said.
“Or how about if they don’t?” I asked, Addie’s big dark eyes flashing into my mind. “What if we just let it die here on this very flowery smelling hill? The ball’s in the Tucker court. Let’s just drop it.”
“You’re just saying that because you’re in bed with a Tanner now,” Virgil said, poking a chubby finger into my chest.
I thought for a split second about being in bed with Addie. I’d thought about it back when I was in high school too, I remembered her vaguely from that time—the distant older sister of the two Tanner girls who were closer to my age. She’d been tall and beautiful back then. Way out of my league. But now . . . the thought of it was distracting. But still impossible.
“I am not sleeping with Addie.”
“Addie, is it?” Virgil asked, his tone mocking.
“That is her name.” This was getting old. I didn’t like justifying myself to these guys, but I didn’t need them spreading rumors about us, either. Shelly was already fired up, though I was pretty sure she knew there was nothing going on. If she had some reason to think there really was, I’d never hear the end of it.
“Addie is a very fond nickname, I’d think,” he said.
“Guys, lay off, okay? There’s nothing going on with me and Addie. I just think this feud has run its course. Let’s end it.”
The brothers exchanged a look and then Virgil nodded. “We’ll end it, all right.”
Shit.
20
Lottie’s Learnings
Addison
Mom had begun coming home each day with new tidbits of information about the age-old Tanner-Tucker feud.
“Did you know that house was built in 1828 by a Tucker?” She asked me as we sat in matching recliners in her living room watching a rerun of Charmed.
I swiveled my head to regard her. “Is that right?” I was interested in the history of the house. But if Mom was suddenly interested in it, there was a good chance she was up to no good.
“It is.” She kept her eyes on me, despite the fact that the Charmed sisters were in a very sticky situation with a warlock and a possessed schoolteacher.
“Is there something else you wanted to tell me about the house?” I asked.
She nodded. “The reason it is very interesting that the house was built in 1828 by a Tucker is because there are records of that land being purchased in 1827 by a Tanner.”
I felt a bit dense. Like maybe I needed Mom to connect the dots a bit more. “Okay, so they sold the land to the Tuckers?”
“No record of that at all.” Mom didn’t even have to say that she was extremely interested in this information. Her tone said it all.
“Okay, so what, Mom?”
“So the Tuckers clearly stole the land from us.”
I sincerely hoped my mother wasn’t considering some kind of legal action over something that had happened hundreds of years ago. I didn’t need the extra hassle. I needed her to give up the dumb feud, let me fix up the house, and sell it. “From us? Really? It’s ‘us’ now?”
“The Tanners. Us.” She gave a fierce nod to make her point.
“I’m sure there’s some other record somewhere that explains what happened next.”
“Maybe.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “That old Tucker fart has been down poking around in those records too.”
“Down where? And which fart?”
“City Hall in the archives where I’ve been digging. I saw him in there today.”
“Who, Mom?”
“Victor Tucker. Your boyfriend’s uncle.”
A little thrill shot through me at the idea of Michael as my boyfriend, but it was so far from reality I needed to put this to rest immediately. “Michael Tucker is not my boyfriend, Mom.”
“You’re living together,” she pointed out.
“No. I mean, we are, but . . . God, Mom, what’s your point?”
“I think Victor is doing what I’m doing.”
“And that would be?”
“Trying to prove the house should rightfully belong to the Tanner family, not be left equally to both families.”
I stood, Charmed completely forgotten in my annoyance over her ridiculousness. “The house, Mom, was not left equally to both families. It was left to two individual people, neither of which has any interest in continuing this ridiculous feud.”
“That’s easy to say when it hasn’t affected you personally.”
“You’re kidding, right? How many complaint sessions have I sat through with you and Aunt Verda moaning about her moose? How long were we on the phone when your shop was turned upside down?”
“Those things didn’t happen to you, Addie. They happened to us.”
That stung. Mom had complained for years that I’d run away from the family, that I’d thought I was too big for my britches and had to show off by moving to New York. She’d been so passive aggressive about it for so long that I stopped coming home to visit. And now she was essentially telling me she didn’t count me as a Tanner at all. “Yes. And I’m sorry. And if we don’t stop, things are going to get worse and someone might end up getting hurt.”
Mom sniffed in response and I decided that seven-thirty was not too early for a thirty-five year old woman to go to bed. In the morning, the floors would be finished drying, and I could go back to the house. And to Michael. My not-boyfriend who I lived with.
Maybe Mom had a little bit of a point.
The following day, I went to the house with a fresh load of laundry and a fast belief that ghosts would not be as difficult to handle as my mother. I also had a load of garden supplies I’d bought at Michael’s store earlier when I had been disappointed not to find him there. What I did find were his cousins, Virgil and Emmett, who both smelled strangely floral, as if their clothes had been washed with some too-strong detergent.
“Aren’t you that Tanner lady?” One of them asked me, narrowing his eyes.
“I am,” I agreed, feeling a little on the spot.
“The one Mike is shacked up with.” This was said by one cousin to the other, as if explaining the situation.
The other cousin nodded enthusiastically, as if this was the most interesting revelation ever to come his way.
The first one said,
“Your sister is Amberlynn, right? High school teacher?”
Now I felt slightly defensive. “She is,” I confirmed, wondering what they wanted with my little sister. She might be a pain, but I was in the habit of looking out for her nonetheless.
“She may or may not have broken into our apartment,” the speaking cousin told me. I wanted to tell them there was zero chance my upstanding little sister would break and enter. But Amberlynn had gotten pretty invested in the feud. I actually didn’t doubt she would if she could.
“Yeah,” he went on. “And she may or may not have unleashed some kind of perfume bomb in there.”
The scent suddenly made sense. I wanted to smack my sister. She was perpetuating this insanity. With a bulk buy from Bath and Bodyworks, no less. “I see,” I said.
“Yeah,” the cousin said, agreeing in general, I guessed.
“I’ll have a word with her,” I promised them. “For the record, I think you smell nice,” I added.
“Screw you, Tanner,” the one that hadn’t spoken yet said. He would now be characterized in my head as the mean one.
“Nice,” I said, starting to feel annoyed at these rednecks. “Is Michael here?”
“No,” they said together, and it was clear they were not going to tell me anything more.
“Fine,” I said. “Bye.”
They did not respond, but I could feel their angry glares on my back as I left the store.
I spent the rest of the day in the side yard at the house, pulling weeds and digging out roots where I could find them. I wanted to rescue the rose garden, an idea I’d gotten from the photos we’d found. There had been a woman in a long white dress holding a parasol over her head to shade her from the sun. At her feet were at least twenty blooming rose bushes, forming a beautiful backdrop to the imposing structure of the house. I didn’t know much about gardening—it wasn’t much of a city pursuit—but I remembered a bit from the time I’d spent weeding with Mom as a kid.
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